Marie Antoinette’s Pink Diamond is Heads to Auction
- Editor OGN Daily
- Jun 12
- 2 min read
The gemstone, which carries an estimate of $5 million, was owned by generations of European royalty.
On the night of 20 June 1791, as the French Revolution raged in Paris, the French royal family donned disguises and started an ill-fated escape eastward, where they expected to find protection among royalist troops. However, things didn't quite go according to plan and they were arrested en route. Revolutionaries hauled them back to Paris and confined them in the Tuileries Palace under armed guard.
The royals’ reputation plummeted in the wake of their so-called 'Flight to Varennes'. As the public realized that Louis XVI and his wife, Marie Antoinette, had no intention of ceding to the revolutionaries’ demands, calls to abolish the monarchy and establish a republic proliferated. Both the king and the queen were executed by guillotine in 1793.
The ring features a fleur-de-lis, the symbol of the French House of Bourbon. Now, the striking diamond that is believed to have passed from Marie Antoinette to her daughter - perhaps with the help of the queen’s hairdresser - and then through generations of European royalty, is coming to auction as part of Christie’s Magnificent Jewels sale in New York on 17 June.
Known as the Marie-Thérèse Pink, the kite-shaped, fancy purple-pink diamond weighs 10.38 carats. While it was once mounted in a tiara and later became part of a hairpin, the diamond is now the centerpiece of a ring created by Joel Arthur Rosenthal, a renowned jewelry designer better known by his initials, JAR.
“It has everything you could want in a piece of jewelry,” says Rahul Kadakia, Christie’s international head of jewelry, in a statement. “The stone - likely from the prized Indian region of Golconda - has several shades of soft colors, flashing purple and pink from different angles. And it’s been transformed into a masterpiece by JAR, all while carrying the splendor of royal provenance.”
